Back from the Inca Trail we had a day in Cusco to recover.This involved a lovely day mooching around the shops and markets with Nicole my best buddy on tour. In keeping with Peruvin tradition, we tried the local delicacy for lunch - yep we ate a guinea pig!! It came I would guess roasted, and already cut into pieces consisting of the head (with teeth prominently showing), and the body in 4 easy to eat portions. After we had taken the obligatory tourist photos of our meal, we tucked in to what was actually a quite tasty meal. Not a lot of meat on it though! We went to a really cool restuarant in the evening called Fallen Angel, all the tables were made of baths which had fish swimmimg around in them, and we had the best food there - steak in gooseberry and honey sauce anyone? Bizarre, but delicious. Next day we were off to the Amazon, we flew to Puerto Maldonado from Cuzco, and then took a boat for about an hour and a half up the river to Eco Amazonia. I had my own lodge which was really beautiful. Lunch on the first day was cooked in a leaf, and once we had worked out how to unwrap in was very tasty. The first afternoon we got a boat across the river to monkey island, as the name suggests there were lots of monkeys! One guy had his bottle of water stolen by a spider monkey who then proceeded to undo it and neck it in about 10 seconds flat - apparently they have learned how to do this by copying the humans. A 5am start the next day took us on a walk through the jungle. The most exciting thing was the guide poking a stick in a hole and a family of tarantulas coming out. The babies came out first followed by the angry mum, was quite glad I had a good zoom on my camera so I could stand well back. We then canoed through channels in the undergrowth kept clear by men swimmimg and cutting them back, not a job I would fancy. Sleeping in the lodge was strange as the jungle noises were really loud at first, lots of insects and animal noises. Soon though they seemed to disappear in the background and I had two of the best nights sleep there. Flew back to Cusco the next day, and en route said goodbye to a lot of the group who were ending their tour. It was a sad moment as I had spent 5 weeks constantly in their company and saying goodbye to Nicole and Darren "my partners in crime" was especially hard. The last week of the tour took us overland fom Cusco to Lima, and we were down to around 15 people again, so a lot more room on the truck. We drove to Chivay and stayed in a lovely little hotel with its own pet llama before rising early to go to the Colca Canyon. I had heard that this was twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and that is kind of what I was expecting - a big gash in the earth. In reality it was more like a huge valley, but impressive none the less. We had a walk along the top and then stopped at a popular Condor spot. After waiting for over an hour we were starting to get bored, but then drifting up on the thermals came an amazing sight. A huge condor swooped over us, I dont think you appreciate quite how big they are until they are just a few feet away. I managed to get the best photo of the group which I was really proud of, there were quite a few bad ones caused by trying to zoom in and out whilst they were flying towards you. That evening I celebrated with a half litre prickly pear cocktail which is quite amusingly called Tuna in Spanish! Next day was Arequipa, a nice city around which we did the obligatory city tour trying unsuccessfully to see the volcanoes which surround the city, due to too much cloud, We did however eat our dinner off hot volcanic slabs in the evening wearing some rather fetching paper bibs. A small hotel right on a deserted beach was next at Puerto Inca. It was surrounded by Inca ruins of where they used to store and dry the fish that were caught in Inca times. Then in the morning was a stop at Chauchilla, a pre Inca cemetry, It was right in the middle of the desert and consisted of deep tombs where the original mummies were still visible. The climate had meant that they had been preserved incredibly well. They all looked a bit freaky really. Now for what I had been looking forward to - flying over the Nazca lines. These are a series of pictures, lines and shapes that were engraved in the earth near Nazca over a period of 800 years. They can only been seen acurately from the sky and there have been years of speculation over what they mean, and how they were created. A german lady, Maria Reich spent her life discovering, restoring and preserving the lines, spending many years alone in the desert scraping away to clear the lines. It eventually took her life as she got skin cancer from all the exposure to the sun, and also went blind from the glare. In a small 6 seater cessna we took off for a view of 12 of the pictures, we saw the astronaut, tree, monkey and many more swooping back and forwards over them and trying not always successfully to take photos. Nearing the end of these swoops, my lunch decided it MAY want to have a repeat visit. I quietly grabbed the sick bag and began deep breathing, thankfully we had now levelled out and the feeling quickly passed - thank god. Have decided that very small aircraft dont agree with me, as the last time I felt like that was in a helicopter. Last two days of my tour were spent speeding around sand dunes in a sand buggy, and then visiting Ballestas Islands where we saw sea lions and huge flocks of sea birds. Officials visit the islands every few years to collect tons of bird poo to sell as fertiliser. It´s so good that years ago even England used to import it, the things you learn...... and so my 6 week organised tour of South America comes to an end. A couple of days relaxing in Lima then off to the Galapagos!!